Colonel Allen West at Restoration Weekend

Now I’m reading Mark Steyn’s second book here, “After America.” I’m about halfway through. I’ve already read your fist book, “America Alone,” when I was over in Kandahar, Afghanistan. And I just want to say this. When we’re here at Restoration Weekend, how are we going to restore our America so that the things that Mark writes about will not come to fruition; so that no one will sit around and talk about “after America?” Well, there are five challenges that I think we must come to understand. And I want to talk to you based upon a perception and the insights from being up there on Capitol Hill for just the past 11 months.

The first thing you should have recognized was yesterday. If you did not tune into C-SPAN and see the debate that was going on on the House floor, you missed the difference between who we are and what we believe in, and what the other side believes in. The fact that we could not get a balanced budget amendment passed in the United States of America is absolutely appalling and reprehensible, especially when you consider that fact that there were people on the other side of the aisle that actually clapped and cheered about the fact that it was defeated.

When you listened to the debate, and people said that now was not the time for a balanced budget amendment — America is $15 trillion in debt. Our debt-to-GDP ratio is 101 percent. Greece’s debt-to-GDP ratio is 128 percent. Italy’s is 120 percent. If not now, when?

But what was played out yesterday was the recalcitrance of those people in the Democrat Party — not all Democrats; some did vote with us, but overarchingly so — a party that does not want to reign in the out-of-control spending in Washington, DC. Why? Because they know, very simply, that’s the means by which they will continue to buy votes in this country. They’ve failed to understand the simple thing that Margaret Thatcher said when she talked about how socialism works very well, until you run out of other people’s money.

(Applause)

What you saw yesterday is one of the major obstacles to us restoring this country — individuals that don’t want to see the economic prosperity of the United States of America. They want to take as much of the American capital that they can and concentrate it in Washington, DC, and spend it wastefully.

We’ve got to do something about this country. Because we cannot allow that vision — that vision from President Obama to Harry Reid, to Nancy Pelosi, to Debbie Wasserman Schultz — we cannot allow that vision to be the vision for the next 30, 40 or 50 years for the United States of America.

(Applause)

The next major obstacle I see is that America must get back to understanding what capitalism is. Right now, we are dealing with crony capitalism. We are dealing with a federal government that takes taxpayer dollars. And they’re the ones that are deciding the winners and the losers in the free market. We’re looking at a federal government that all of sudden believes it’s the number-one venture capitalist. When you look at what is happening with Solyndra and some of these other corporations and companies, and we see how well they do with that — when we talk about the economic failure of 2008, it’s all because government decided they would get involved in the mortgage industry. And of course, not too long ago, government decided they’d get involved in the healthcare industry. And if history plays out, we know where that will end up.

It’s very obvious. This President does not care about jobs for the American people. You look at what happened with the Keystone XL project — 20,000 jobs to produce that pipeline. Almost 118,000 jobs indirectly created. And what did he say? He said we’re going to put it off until next year, after the election. America does not have a Commander in Chief; America has a Campaigner in Chief.

(Applause)

But the thing that really upsets me the most is that we have a complicit media that will not call this President out. You know, here in my pocket, 22 bills that are sitting on the desk of Harry Reid that are not getting pushed. But yet, you don’t hear the media talking about this. You don’t hear the mainstream media talking about Solyndra. You don’t hear the mainstream media wanting to talk about the Keystone XL project. What each and every one of us have to realize as we continue on — you’re a media source. You’ve got to get out there and spread the truth, through your e-mails, through your blogs, on the television, through radio. We’ve got to get the American people back engaged once again.

The bureaucratic nanny state will be the death of the United States of America. Because this is the race that we’re in. If more people become wedded to government, either by subsistence check or employment check — if that 47 percent of wage-earning households that do not pay federal income taxes all of a sudden becomes 50 or 51 percent, as we say down in Georgia — Katie, bar the door, because it is over. That’s the race that we’re in in the next year.

That’s why you see a President that goes out and says you can have free healthcare, you can have free education, you can have free cars, you can have a federal government that is giving people 250 free minutes on a cell phone. You can have anything that you want. If you’re a college student, we’ll take care of your student loans. Because if they get more people dependent — and the facts show that — a 41 percent increase in people on food stamps, from 32 million to 45 million; a 16 percent increase of Americans on poverty, up by 6.4 million. 48.5 percent of Americans are now on some form of government aid. That’s the race that we’re in. Because if the bureaucratic nanny state grows, as Ayn Rand wrote about in “Atlas Shrugged” — if you start to grow the entitlement class over the production class, the producers will stop producing.

But where will we go? Because America is the last great hope for mankind. It truly is, as Kennedy and Reagan said, the shining city that sits upon a hill. But our light is starting to grow dimmer and dimmer.

We cannot have someone sitting in 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue that continues to make politically expedient foreign policy decisions. We’re still living with the decision of President Jimmy Carter to not support the Shah of Iran. And it gave us the ayatollahs.

(Applause)

So what will come forth out of an Egypt that we forced Hosni Mubarak to step down? Well, we already see it playing out. The Muslim Brotherhood is gaining in strength and power, Iranian warships transiting through the Suez Canal, an Egypt that brokered a reconciliation pact between Fatah and Hamas, an Egyptian foreign minister that met with the Iranian foreign minister. When we all of a sudden said we would go to zero troops in Iraq, the general on the ground — General Austin, that I knew — I served with him in Fort Bragg — asked for 10,000 to 15,000. It was taken down to 3,000 to 5,000. But the President stood up and said — I’ve kept my campaign promise. We’re completely pulling out of Iraq.

And in August, when I sat there in Israel with Prime Minister Netanyahu, there was one thing that he said — I am concerned if we do not have a credible military presence in Iraq. Something that no one is talking about is Masoud Barzani, the head of the Kurdish people. Within days after President Obama making that statement, he traveled to Iran and did something he had never done before — he met with Ahmadinejad, he met with the Ayatollah Khomeini. Because for the second time, we turned our back on the Kurdish people. Pro-American, pro-Israel, Kurdish people. That’s what happens when you have a Campaigner in Chief and not a Commander in Chief.

The last thing — and I’m sure David Horowitz knows this so well — you’ve got to read Saul Alinsky’s “Rules for Radicals.” You’ve got to read The Communist Manifesto by Karl Marx. You’ve got to read Sun Tzu’s “Art of War.” You’ve got to develop a strategy to defeat them. Because what we see playing out with this Occupy Wall Street is exactly what they seek to do. They are going to create violence, turmoil and upheaval all throughout our major urban areas and try to disrupt us, and try to get us off of what the true message is. The fact that they’re trying to compare this to a Constitutional, conservative, grassroots movement, the Tea Party, is appalling and disgusting. But this is who we are, and this is who we’re dealing with.

This is their last chance to do as the President said — to fundamentally transform the United States of America. Well, I got to tell you something. This little thing that I carry with me whenever I go out, the Declaration and the Constitution — it does not need fundamental transformation.

(Applause)

So tonight you’re going to hear from some great speakers. I am honored to be here and to speak. It’s a privilege to represent the American people here residing in Congressional District 22. But I’ve been on many battlefields. But this is the battlefield for our United States of America, the Constitutional republic that has been running for 235 years. The dream that Thomas Jefferson put pen to paper and talked about can be lost in the twinkling of an eye.

If we want to restore America, if we want to have a Restoration Weekend next November, right here in The Breakers; if we want to prove Mark wrong in his book, “After America;” every single one of you has got to put on some battle fatigues, lace up your boots, and get ready to fight.

A Muslim supporting West? Why? Just curious because CAIR, and other Muslims attack him.

Mike Boze

Col. West, we need you NOW! It's not too late. Draft Allen West!

StephenD

As Congressman West points out and where we as conservatives fail to exploit, is the fact of the complete and utter failure of the Democratic Party's control over ALL America's blighted communities. To know that those who place themselves in the front and pretend to speak for the victims of this money grab (Jesse Jackson, Al Sharpton, et al) have gained exponentially while these communities have in all measure, gotten worse is a fact that needs to be in red letters.
If the cycle is perpetuated and not only no growth or “light at the end of the tunnel” is seen but rather actual retrograde lives, we ought to show that there is a better way. A person on the dole knows having more kids gets more money, will have more kids. A person growing up in this sees that subsistence is the best they can hope for; a poor education with few prospects and up goes the white flag and the cycle continues. We must be the vanguard. We must step in and, regardless of the pain it may cause in the beginning, stop this. Can you imagine opportunities for several Allen Wests by merely getting them off this merry-go-round?

tanstaafl

WOW! We need more politicians like Colonel West.

RAS

Compassion is hollow without strength. It is clear that Col. West has both in equal measure. Tough love is real love and it is obvious that the Colonel loves America, despite the earlier injustices done to him and other black Americans. He is clearly willing to fight for her survival and we all need to rally to his side. God Bless.

Stephen_Brady

"However, the ideological chasm that exists in America today, with people that believe that there are such things as class or caste — they don’t understand that sense of American exceptionalism.&nbsp; They don’t understand the fact that where you are born in America, or where you come from, has nothing to do with where you end up, or your station later on in life.&nbsp; That is what we must fight for in our country."

This is the sum of it, in my estimation.

My father was a master mechanic, and his father was a laborer. My sister (the oldest) was the first President of a manufacturing firm in that company's history, my brother worked his way through the ranks to become a supervisor and then a consultant in the area of nuclear security, and I became a professor of philosophy. Now "retired", in one year, I will sign a contract with a major opera company to be the oldest singer they've ever hired.

In America, the sky is the limit. Thank you, Col. West, for summing up American exceptionalism in one simple paragraph.

logdon

Quite masterly. Two enlightened minds meet and a double tour de force ensues.

The myth of a so called compassionate Democrat liberal agenda is busted wide open as phoney fraud designed only to keep the poor and dispossessed on the dependency plantation whether it be black or white.

They are reduced to mere voting fodder and deliberately kept that way by partisan anger inducing technique which removes all logic to be replaced by a blind and false emotionalism.

Obama is the king of this methodology. Poor little rich boy steeped in Chicago political filth whose only claim to fame is as a rabble rousing demagogue.

A man who wears a badge of expedient blackness when in fact he's bi-racial. A man whose history is shrouded and deliberately concealed. A Princeton educated political robot steeped in entitlement who purports to speak for the people whilst living in that big house on the hill just like the ones he rails against.

Both Horowitz and West are astute enough to see through the facade and aware enough to see where it's leading America. A country divided into know your place, rich and poor and ideologically segregated black and white.

The incoherence is quite staggering as state induced inequality eats into the heart of a great nation.

The Constitution and aims of the truly liberated founders are trashed to be replaced by a lumbering marxist state leviathon, out of control and which has no place within an entrepreneurial go-getting society. What happened to that old rallying call of lifting yourself by your own bootstraps and the spirit of self advancement?

We've seen this happen here in Britain as real employment was replaced by governmental make work projects and we're witnessing Europe's economic unraveling as the corrupt power hungry elite attempt to cling on to the leaking life rafts.

That it doesn't work is as plain as it gets. It destroyed Soviet Russia and now its eating away at both the European and American global civilisation powerhouses.

The good news? Thanks to the heroic efforts of men like Horowitz and West the message is leaking out and old party prejudices dissolving by sheer dint of hard work, dedication and above all the disinfecting sunlight of good old honest truth.

It’s not over by a long chalk but to mangle that old war dog, Churchill following Rommel’s defeat at El Alamain, it may not be the end or even the beginning of the end but it’s certainly the beginning of a new beginning.

ebonystone

Here Horowitz repeats the same line he presented nearly two months ago on 10-25-11 in an FP article "Col. Allen West's Address to …":

" If Democrats lost just 20 percent of the black vote nationally, they would lose virtually every state in the union."

Sorry Mr. Horowitz, but it's just not so. I did the calculations for all the states for the 2008 election. Assuming that Obama lost 20 % of the black vote, and that all of those went to McCain instead, McCain would have picked up Florida, Indiana, North Carolina, Ohio, and Virginia, gaining 76 electoral votes for a total of 249. Obama would still have won 288 electoral votes, and the Presidency.

I originally posted this as a comment to the 10-25 article.

http://watchingfrogsboil.com watchfrogsboil

Arrest Allen West! Use NaSI SARs to charge Allen West and your U.S. Representative and Senators who voted for the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA: S.1867/H.R.1540) with "Seditious Conspiracy" under U.S. Code Title 18 Part I Chapter 115 Section 2384. Details here: http://AmerikanReich.com

Glenn Stephens

Doesn't it bother you Tea Party people that Adam West was wrong on NDAA and Jim DeMint and Rand Paul were right?

He talks about liberty and the Founders but he was on the side of Obama on NDAA. Both West and Obama ignore the Founding Fathers and the plain text of the Constitution and deprive Americans of their constitutional rights.

Adam West and Barack Obama – wrong on NDAA.

John_Kelly

Brilliant comment Chezwick_Mac .

The TRUTH is a powerful weapon. Keep up the good work.

Atikva

It's not "If Allen West can avoid personal scandal", for bogus "personal scandals" are being manufactured by the leftists every time one of our leaders becomes a threat to them.

Rather it's: WILL THE PATRIOTS STOP PAYING ANY ATTENTION TO THESE FICTITIOUS SCANDALS THAT NEVER WERE, so that we may have true Americans, valid candidates to represent us in 2012.

HLD

Why has noone suggested a Republican Presidential/Vice-Presidential ticket of Col. Allan West and Thomas Sowell?

aspacia

Yes, let us hope there are no skeletons.

Lee

Interesting that you begin by stating that "Unlike Obama, his (Allen West) experience IS the African-American experience….because certain factions are still treating him as if he (President Obama) is still African-American. West and all republicans talk a good game about "wasteful spending", YET, THEY FAIL TO STATE THAT THEY EACH GET $174,000 ANNUALLY TO ARGUE. Talk about wasteful spending.

At the end of the day, ALL POLITICIANS, from both primary parties, need to have their terms limited, come to Washington as a true public servant, e.g. not accepting the salary while still getting paid from other sources and serve the needs of the people!!!!

Lee

Interesting that you begin by stating that "Unlike Obama, his (Allen West) experience IS the African-American experience….because certain factions are still treating him as if he (President Obama) is still African-American. West and all republicans talk a good game about "wasteful spending", YET, THEY FAIL TO STATE THAT THEY EACH GET $174,000 ANNUALLY TO ARGUE. Talk about wasteful spending.

At the end of the day, ALL POLITICIANS, from both primary parties, need to have their terms limited, come to Washington as a true public servant, e.g. not accepting the salary while still getting paid from other sources and serve the needs of the people!!!!

Stephen_Brady

Thanks, Chez.

In point of fact, I had to hide the fact of my conservative beliefs, until I gained tenure. Otherwise, they would have found some way to fire me. After tenure, I "came out of the closet", as it were. My colleagues hated me with a vengeance, but couldn't help to notice that I now had waiting lists for students to get into my sections!

I learned about this in my junior year of college. Taking Greek Philosophy, we were graded solely on the basis of our midterm, final, and term paper. The exams were all essay. I "aced" everything, including the term paper, in which I examined Plato's "Third Man Argument".

I received a "B" for the course.

I asked the instructor how I could have gotten a B, and she said, "I don't like your politics." I replied, "But we've never talked about politics," to which she replied, "I've heard rumors."

It wasn't easy, especially after I got to Princeton.

aspacia

Because Sowell, like Horowitz was a communist.

aspacia

How egregious. How unethical. I hate those with power over others using this a stick if they don't agree.

Stephen_Brady

I agree with you. The "stick" she held over me was that I was to be a graduate assistant in her department, but only if I played ball, as it were.